Hi, I am Jean!
So, who am I? I’m not even sure what to lead with on this description, you’ll learn quite a bit from my videos (TEDx Talk & Well-Being Journey) for starters. I can certainly tell you that I set out to be kind, supportive, trustworthy and fun above all other things.
Professionally I’ve worked in the field of Leadership and Team development for the best part of 20 years now – all within the tech industry. My happiest times have been since joining Cisco seven years ago, with its incredible relationship culture and a constant focus to change – it’s a bit of a dream role for me.
Behind the Hashtag is a purely personal venture and not in any way representative of Cisco, although I will applaud them often for the support and learning I’ve had being part of the team.
Personally, I think it’s essential to declare that I’m a “recovering” people pleaser! A proud single mother to the most wonderful, wise and neurodiverse teenage daughter. I’m lucky to still have my parents allowing me to be the daughter trying to help them navigate the ageing process with health and memory loss challenges. Mildly menopausal, often exhausted, yet sometimes magically energised and optimistic. I worked my way through burnout when I turned fifty a couple of years ago, due to extreme stress in my personal life and learned a TON through that experience.
I’m always focusing on well-being and I’m still a ‘work in progress’, trying to crack the code of my own – both inside and outside. I do love to socialise, even before it was fashionable to use technology to keep in touch with friends and family around the globe.
Travel has been a passion for many years. I hate rollercoasters and yet I feel I have visited Disney more often than Mickey-bloody-Mouse (you can read about one eventful visit here).
And humour – although there is much I take very seriously I have NEVER taken myself too seriously, so although I’m sure we’ll touch on some challenging subjects along the way, I will put a wee warning in place now, my humour may occasionally get salty enough to make my mother’s eyebrows go up, but I never set out to offend with any F-bombs which may drop – it will always be in service of sharing a story ?
Jean MacAskill
Working with a game-changer!
The story of my well-being journey…
This video gives a pretty unusual window into me! You’ll see me at most frightened and also at my most empowered – and all thanks to the incredible game-changer Jessie Pavelka, who I had the opportunity to work with thanks to my employer, Cisco.
Four years on, I still have his Four Elements of True Health guiding the way for me and Jessie continues to help our teams worldwide as Cisco’s Well-being Ambassador.